There’s a sign ahead. The ramp for the highway is coming up. Thank you, God. Once we’re on the highway, we’ll be back at the office in less than ten minutes.
“Violet always wore lacy dresses. Ruffley dresses. So my mother made me wear them too.”
Another bleep of silence. It goes on long enough so I know I have to say something, and not what I’m thinking which is that I don’t think ruffley is a word.
“And, uh, and I bet you hated—”
“I did not hate them! I just looked awful in them. Violet was round and plump. I was round and fat.”
I open my mouth to tell her that I don’t get the distinction, but when I look at her I see that she’s looking at me. Glaring at me. As if she’s daring me to be dumb enough to say exactly what I was going to say.
I keep silent.
“We were always in the same schools. The same classes.”
Okay. I’m sure I’m on steady ground here. I look at Bailey and smile.
“Where you outdid her, right? She got C’s. You got A’s. You aced every exam. She flunked them all and—Hey!”
Bailey has just slugged me.
It’s not much of a slug, just a balled up fist to the arm, but Jesus H. Christ, my calm paragon of efficiency is morphing from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde.
“She got C’s. I got A’s. Do you really think that was good, Mr. O’Malley? Do you think having my whole family talk about me being so bright and Violet being the godddamn Queen of the May was a good thing?”
“Queen of the May?”
“It’s just a saying. An expression. She was Homecoming Queen. She was Summer Festival Queen.” Bailey makes a gulping sound. “She was Winter Festival Queen.” Another gulping sound. “And I was an honors student. An honors student! An honors…”
She makes another gulping sound and, holy crap, I realize that she’s sobbing.
The on-ramp for the highway is just ahead, and right before it there’s a big, wide shoulder. No trees. Just a shoulder. I turn the wheel hard and pull onto it, unbuckle my seat belt, unbuckle Bailey’s, and pull her into my arms.
She’s not just sobbing. She’s flooding us both. My jacket. My shirt. Tears and, man, tears and snot because her nose is leaking.
I lift my ass enough so I can dig into my pocket for my handkerchief. Thankfully, it’s unused.
“Here,” I say, and I hold the white cotton square to her nose.
Her hand closes over mine and she gives a honking blow.
I go on holding her. It feels awkward. Until this moment the only parts of Bailey I’ve ever touched are maybe her hand or her elbow or her shoulder, so this really does feel, you know, weird. Not only have I never held her, I’ve never held anybody wearing coveralls. They’re stiff and scratchy, but beneath them is a woman.
I know that sounds ridiculous.
Let me rephrase that.
Beneath them, I can feel that Bailey is a woman.
Jesus. That’s even more ridiculous.
What I mean is, of course she’s a woman. I always knew that. It’s just that she’s, you know, female. Soft. Round, in the nicest possible way. Delicate, like I thought before…
She blows her nose again, pushes free of my arms and sits up straight.
“I’ve made a fool of myself,” she says.
“No. No, you have not.”
“I have.”
“You haven’t. Listen, the thing with your cousin Violet? Did you ever figure out a way to get even?”
She looks at me and cocks her head. Her hair has come loose of its rubber band. Her eyes are glittery from her tears. She looks sad and it breaks my heart. She’s such a good person. I hate to see her so unhappy.
“How could I? She’s always been perfect.”
“Really? Seems to me what she’s been is perfectly awful.”
That wins me a tiny smile.
“Nobody else thinks so,” she says. “Only me.”
“Baloney. I’m betting half the people who know her hate her. She probably kicks puppies.”
Okay. That gets me a watery laugh, but the laugh fades and becomes a sigh.
“The thing is, she’ll know.”
“Know what?”
“That I won’t be, you know, I won’t be doing what I told my mother.”
“Ah. Going away for a weekend of hot sex with some lucky guy.”
She blushes. “Yes.”
“How will she know?”
Bailey sighs again. “She just will. They all will. I mean, I’m not…That lie I told my mother. I’m not—I’m not a woman a man would take away for—for—you know, for what you said.”
“A weekend of hot sex,” I say, and her blush deepens. “Why not?”
“Why not?” She pulls back and stares at me. “I’m the girl who got straight A’s. Violet’s the girl who got the boys.”
“That was a long time ago. Things change.”
Another sigh. “Violet will see right through that story about the weekend and—you know—and—”
“A guy who’ll want you for hot sex,” I say solemnly.
“Yes. There’s no way to fool her.”
But maybe there is.
A plan is forming in my mind. It’s crazy. Anybody would think so. On the other hand…
“Look,” I hear myself say, “I have an idea.”
“About what?”
“About your cousin’s wedding.”
“Mr. O’Malley. Thank you for listening to me. But really, I’ll get through this. I’ll stay home. Or maybe I’ll go. I mean, it’s just a weekend. I can survive…What?”
“Here’s my idea,” I say. “Why don’t I go with you?”
5
Bailey looks at me as if I’ve gone nuts. I don’t think so. I mean, what have I got to lose?
“Huh?”
“Your mom’s never met me. She would have, if I’d gone to your dad’s funeral, but I was in Chicago, remember?”
“Mr. O’Malley. I don’t know what you think that would accomplish. I mean, it’s nice of you to, I don’t know, to offer to be there to give me courage, but—”
“This isn’t about courage, Bailey. It’s about you having a gorgeous, successful, fantastic guy to take you to that wedding.”
Her eyes are widening. They’re interesting eyes. I always thought they were brown, but they’re not. They’re damn near black.
“You?”
“Well, yeah.” I grin. “I don’t know about the gorgeous part. Not the fantastic one, either. But you have to admit, I’m successful.” I look down at myself. My hands are rough looking, a couple of nails a little jagged after two hours spent with those doors, and there’s some glue on my jeans. I look up and smile. “I’m a little messy right now, but I clean up pretty good.”
“No!” Bailey shakes her head. “What I mean is, thank you. But I couldn’t possibly impose…”
“It’ll be fun.”
“Fun?” She looks at me as if I’m nuts. “Fun? A weekend with my family, with my cousin Violet and her obnoxious, about-to-be husband will be fun?”
“Is he really obnoxious?”
“Is the sky blue?”
“And Violet? No redeeming virtues?”
Bailey looks me straight in the eye. “Not a one.”
I chuckle. “Think of what a good time we’ll have, Bailey, rocking their smug little world.”
She stares at me. And stares. She’s going to say no, and for some crazy reason, no is not what I want to hear.
So I take a breath. Lean forward. I kiss her. Lightly. My mouth brushing over hers. Just brushing. It’s a friendly kiss—until she makes a little sound in the back of her throat and I feel her lips cling to mine. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s my imagination. It must be, because the entire thing lasts just a couple of seconds, but I feel a kind of thump in my chest, as if something’s interfered with my breathing.
Must have been all that working with old wood and glue.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I say brightly.
She touches the tip of her tongue to the center of her bottom lip.
“You do?”
“Sure. You figure it’ll never work. That we won’t be able to fool anybody. But we will. We’re old friends. I know you know and you know me.”
“But we don’t,” she says. “Know each other. We’re not old friends. I’m your assistant. And you’re my boss. And we’d be pretending to be, you know, to be—”
Man. Didn’t I once see an adults-only movie with that plot?
This is definitely not the time to think about that.
“To be dating,” I say briskly. “And of course it will work. We’ll look comfortable together.”
“We will?”
“Yeah. Because we know stuff about each other. The kind of stuff that, you know, says we’re, uh, we’re a couple.”
Bailey shakes her head. Doubt is written across her face.
I roll my eyes.
“How do I take my coffee?” I ask.
“What?”
“Just answer the question. How do I take my coffee?”
“Black. Two sugars.”
“What’s my favorite sport?”
“You mean, like you play soccer in Central Park on Sundays? Or that sometimes you watch English rugby on the big flatscreen in your office when you’re supposed to be doing paperwork? Or that you drive all the way to Massachusetts for every Patriots home game even though the Giants and the Jets are both New York teams because you think it’s wrong that they both actually play in New Jersey?”
I am impressed. I tell Bailey that.
She shrugs, draws a little further away and begins trying to smooth back her hair, which is impossible because it started to rain a while ago and I have the windows of the truck down and it’s obvious that Bailey’s hair is turning into a mass of curls.
How come I never knew that before? That she has such soft-looking curls?
And how come she’s giving me this smug look?
“And what do you know about me?” she asks.
“A lot.”
“For instance.”
I think. I think harder. And I realize that what I know is that she’s smart, that she has a degree in business, she has a mom in upstate-wherever-it-is New York. Oh. And she has a nasty cousin named Violet.
Crap.
That’s all I have.
“See?” She folds her arms and the smug look grows even more smug. “You don’t know a thing about me, Mr. O’Malley. We could never fool my family for an hour, let alone an entire weekend.”
An entire weekend? I must have said the words out loud because the smug look disappears and is instantly replaced by one that says forget the whole thing.
“Uh huh. Friday evening through Sunday afternoon. So, thanks for the offer, but—”
“Today is Tuesday.”
“So?”
“So, that gives me four days.”
“Four days to do what?”
“To get to know you.”
“It’s more like three days,” Bailey says, “and it’s impossible.”
Logic tells me she’s probably right. It tells me that you can’t really learn a lot about someone in so short a time. Even if you could, logic also tells me that as much as I love my own family, long weekends spent with family can be, you know, daunting.
On the other hand, I already made an offer. And I’m not a guy who backs down. Added to that, I am into winning. The lady might know how I take my coffee and my sports, but it’s evident she doesn’t know that.
I turn away and shift the truck into gear.
“How do you take your coffee?” I ask.
She heaves an exasperated sigh. “Really, sir—”
“Light? Black? Sugar? Sweet’N Low?” I pull onto the ramp, check the mirror, step on the gas and merge onto the highway. “Just don’t tell me you take it without caffeine.”
“I drink tea,” she says, “as if it matters.”
“What kind? Green? Black? Orange pekoe?” I feel her staring at me and I flash her a grin. “I’m not a complete barbarian,” I say. “I know what tea is.”
“It’s white tea.”
“White tea?”
“Yes, Mr. O’Malley. It’s picked before the leaves are—”
“That Mr. O’Malley thing has to go.”
“Really, sir—”
“Same with the sir routine.” I check the mirror, pick up some speed and pass a line of cars. “Loose.” She looks at me. “The tea. Am I right?”
She gives a quick nod.
“Okay. White tea. What else should I know? Sports. Are you into sports?”
Silence. Then she sighs again. “No.”
“Not even to watch? Baseball?”
She rolls her eyes.
“Football?”
Another roll of the eyes. “Grown men,” she says, “pummeling each other into the dirt.”
“Sometimes it’s into the mud,” I say helpfully. She makes a face. “Okay,” I say. “How about hobbies?”
“Not really.”
“Meaning?”
“Well, I like to go to gallery showings. Museums. I like to walk along the beach. Jones Beach, when I can. That’s out on—”
“On Long Island. Great beach. Anything else?”
“I like classical music.”
“I knew that,” I say triumphantly.
“You did?”
“Of course. Your cell phone. Beethoven’s Fifth.”
“Holsts’ The Planets.”
“Yeah. That’s what I meant. Come on. What other things do you like to do?”
“I like to read.”
“Ah. Those books with sexy guys on the covers? What are you reading right now?”
“War and Peace,” she says coolly. “If there’s a sexy guy on the cover, I haven’t noticed.”
War and Peace. It figures.
“What’s your idea of a perfect late night snack?”
She doesn’t hesitate. “Cereal.”
“Cereal?”
“Yes,” she says, not just coolly, but defiantly. “I’m sure that isn’t your idea of—”
“Cap’n Crunch? Or Frosted Flakes?”
I can feel her staring at me. I look at her and shrug. “We all have our secrets, Bailey. Midnight raids on bowls of crispy stuff smothered in milk happen to be one of mine.”
She smiles, but it doesn’t last. By the time we pull off at our exit, she’s back to shaking her head.
“Thank you for trying, sir, but it wouldn’t work.”
I turn onto the long driveway that leads to the O’Malley offices and pull up before the front door.
“Even if I wanted to accept your generous offer—”
“It’s not generous. It’s just one friend helping another.”
“We really aren’t friends, sir. And that’s the point. There’s just too much to learn about each other and not enough time to do it. But I thank you for—”
“White tea. Loose, not bags. Tolstoy. Jones Beach. Grown men beating each other up. Which is not what football is, by the way, but you’re entitled to your own opinion.”
“That’s very good, Mr. O’Malley, but—”
“I’m a quick study.”
“Perhaps.” Her hand is on the door handle. “But my mother is sharp. She’d see through our routine in an instant.”
“She will, if you keep calling me Mr. O'Malley.”
“Really, Mister…” She stops. Takes a breath. “Look, it’s not that I don’t appreciate your offer, but—”
“Although, who knows, if anybody hears you addressing me so formally—sir, Mister— they’ll figure maybe we have an interesting thing going in the bedroom.”
Dumb thing to say, but if I’m going to think of Bailey as, ah, as my woman, I have to start talking to her as if we spend our time having fun together instead of working our asses off.
I can see the color rushing into her face.
Jesus, her hair really is a mess.
I reach
out and run my fingers through it. Just to smooth it out. No other reason. Nothing to do with the softness of it, or the way those little curls wind around my fingers.
“But just to be clear, whatever happens in the bedroom would be strictly your choice.”
“Nothing will happen in the bedroom,” she says, shoving my hand away.
“No. Yes. It was a joke.”
“The whole idea is a joke. I am not going to do this ridiculous thing.”
I shrug. I sit back and put my hands on the steering wheel.
“Have it your way,” I say. “Don’t go to the wedding. Let your cousin Violet win. Or go to the wedding and let her win anyway. Because whether you’re a no-show or you turn up alone, the game will go to her.”
I hate myself as soon as the words are out of my mouth. And I don’t really mean them. Why would a bright woman like my PA give a crap what her scuzzy-sounding cousin thinks? So why did I say something like that? It couldn’t be because I want her to agree to what admittedly is a crazy scheme…
“You’re right.”
I blink. And look at her. She is staring straight at me, arms folded, chin high.
“I am?”
“She stole my favorite doll when we were six. Did I tell you that?”
“Uh, no. No, you didn’t.”
“Stole it. And pulled off Suzy’s head.”
“Suzy?”
“My doll. Violet wasn’t happy with just stealing her. She had to kill her.” The way she says it, I expect her eyes to blur with tears. Instead, her chin goes up another inch. “I hated her for that. Dammit, I still hate her!”
Another curse word? I’m stunned. But Bailey’s not finished yet.
“It’s time Violet found out I’m every bit as good as she is.”
“Better,” I hear myself say.
“Better. Much better.” Her eyes narrow. She gives me the kind of look the asp must have given Cleopatra in their last minutes together. “Did I tell you about her fiancé?”
I don’t get the chance to answer, because Bailey doesn’t give me the chance.
“She says he owns his own business. And he does.” The snake-to-Cleo look is gone. It’s been replaced by the way I figure a cat looks at a mouse. “He owns three launderettes.”
“Well,” I say cautiously…
“Washers. Dryers. Detergents.” She makes a sound that cannot mean she’s a fan of washers, dryers and detergents. “He’s an inch shorter than she is even though he wears, what do you call them? Elevator shoes.”
The F-Word: A Sexy Romantic Comedy Page 4